Friday, 6th January, 2006

Numpty

random numpty

As I said, I woke up this morning at 5.30. Tish was curled up next to me, Biscuit was nibbling at my feet (ew). Gradually, the last thought in my head as I went to bed gave way and was replaced by a new thought for the day.

(Last night's thought: "Must bring down Transformation!". This morning's thought: "Must never blog whilst drunk again!")

I swished round the house in my nightie for a bit, drinking copious amounts of coffee realising that I wasn't about to get back to sleep, gradually trying to form some of my drunken rantage into something that more closely approached a reasoned and thoughtful argument. All the time, the muscles in my shoulders were doing their usual thing of clicking and aching — not having really got themselves sorted out since I cricked them over Christmas.

"No matter", I thought to myself. "I've an appointment at the massage parlour at midday".

I plonked myself down at my Mac, drank more coffee, and started writing — pausing only to get more coffee and more fags — trying to spin something cohesive and sensible out of the fragments of anger that had enveloped me last night, all the time imagining the hand-rubbing-joy that I could expect at noon.

At 11.30, I de-princessed, and trundled out of the house, up Castle Hill, and on into town. I've been late a couple of times in the past, and I didn't want to be late again.

I got there well before 12, sat down in the waiting room, and read a pamphlet about ear-candling, happy in the knowledge that my Saturday would soon be full of muscle-poking fingers, and knots being undone.

Oh wait

It's Friday isn't it?

Resolution

transformation rant actionplan tranny

Let me try and go a bit further to explain what I have against Transformation, and what I intend to do.

Elsewhere, on the Internet, various points have been made about the legitimacy and ethics about Transformation as a business. It strikes me that there's two sides to the debate: (1) Transformation are evil; (2) It's a Free Market.

The thing is though, outside of all of that, the way that Transformation have become (to a certain extent) synonymous with the word "Transvestite" has far-reaching effects, even on those of us who have found our way safely into 'the bubble'.

For me, at least, the thing that galls me about them, is that they continue to present a less-than-perfect image of trannies.

I've written about delusion before in the past. I think it's one of those running themes that stretch back to 2002. I deeply believe that one of the reasons why the Public At Large™ find us so hilarious, ridiculous, and laughable, is because of the notion that we believe that we truely, honestly believe that we look like women.

It's an issue of deceit ("Why is he trying to trick me into thinking he's a woman?"), an issue of sexism ("Is that what he thinks women are like?"), and an issue of, well, dignity I guess.

If we did all think we passed, then those would be serious problems. But we don't do we? We're all post-modern, ironic, self-aware, happy blokes in frocks — not ashamed to admit what we are, just trying to express something that we feel right down in the very core of our self.

Transformation though, relies on delusion to sell its products.

Imagine, for a moment, some random person wanting to find out a little bit more about the thing that their tranny-friend has just come out to them about. They Google (obviously) this new word, and totter off in serach of knowledge.

Browsing through Transformation's site, they'd be forgiven if they came to conclusion that we're all a bunch of simpering fools — gullible enough to part with large sums of cash on the basis of a few Photoshopped photographs.

And I hate what that says, by implication, about me. Because apart from anything else, it simply isn't true.

...

I think, that over the past 10-20 years, there's been a monumental shift in the TV community. You can see the evidence all around you — vibrant, unashamed men in dresses, celebrating what they do, rather than cowering in the closet.

We are a hugely diverse group of people — bouncing and thinking and flouncing and ranting our way all over the place. But that's still not the perception of us at large.

We are still — to all intents and purposes — a joke, and I think that Transformation are partly to blame for that.

Not perhaps, because of the way they do business. Not perhaps, because of the secretive and sex-shop feel about their stores. But perhaps, because there's nothing else out there to compensate for that image.

We have, I feel, been fantastically productive over the past year, as a group of people. We've been rambling, ranting, going out, doing fun and interesting things — pushing forward the notion that trannies aren't all a bunch of self-delusional fools.

Take Becky's Hamster Sudoku thingy for example. A fantastic, wonderful thing, that got spread all over the internet — and despite how you might feel about Sudoku itself, you have to admit it was bloody good.

What I really admired her for, in regard to that, was how she dealt with it. She could have set up a new site, devoted to Hamsters and Japanese puzzles — but she didn't. She unashamedly stuck it on her trannie-site — and pushed the issue of transvestism neatly into the minds of people all over the place.

I've often imagined, that the thought process of visitors to it, went something like this:

"Woah, that's cool. But it was done by a tranny. But it's cool. But it was done by a tranny. But it's cool. I didn't think that trannies could do cool things"

Does that make any sense?

I guess, that what I'm possibly trying to get at, is the idea that we need to be a lot moer vocal and shouty about who/what we are. Last year's Sparkle was a brilliant thing — but we need to build on that. We need to up the stakes.

...

Back though, to the issue of Transformation being #1 in Google. I have two questions:

1. Does anyone have any moral or ethical objections to Google-bombing them off?

2. What should we bomb? Wikipedia (which I reckon is the best bet), or something else like The Angels or Sparkle?

The thing is, I happen to feel that Transformation are fair-game for Google-bombing. I know that it's frowned on in some circles, but (judging by what Zoe was saying in the comments of Becky's post), Transformation aren't afraid of using dodgy SEO techniques to keep themselves at the top.

I think it would take more than "30 links", but I think that we all have a combined PageRank high enough to knock them down to at least #2.

What would that achieve though?

Well, for a start, it would replace a very commercially-focused hit for "transvestite" with a much more informative one. If you're out there looking for breastforms or the like, the chances are you're not going to be Googling for a generic word like "transvestite". You're going to be Googling for "breastforms", natch.

Tom Coates wrote a while ago about The Gardeners of the Internet, and while I might be taking what he's talking about slightly out of context, I can't help but feel that there's some similarities between him, as a weblogger, with a "wodge of pagerank" helping out someone who's been unfairly misrepresented online, and us, as a collective group trying to combat the SEO tactics of a company that has 'hijacked' our name.

So to speak.

...

On my little (futile) journey into town earlier, I was trying to recall what it was like when I was young — leafing through a dictionary trying to find "transvestite" having just started to realise what I was.

I was trying to put myself in the frame of mind of someone in that very position today, and trying to figure out what I would do. Obviously, what with it being 2006 and all that, I'd Google instead.

'Tidying-up' the results for "transvestite", I feel, is a thoroughly worth-while thing to do (although I'd quite happily listen to arguments against), as it would help widen the range of "ways-in" to our little space.

I dunno — it just feels like we've got a great big unwanted advert slapped over our club door.

...

This notion of a "way-in", is perhaps the most important thing that we, as webloggers can do. Our 'job', as it were — apart from entertaining the masses with random stories, rants and pictures of frocks — is to hint at the diversity and depth of our community.

Each time we talk about something that happened, relate a childhood memory, promote an upcoming event, or go off on one about how "nobody understands us", we increase the likelihood that the outside world will start to realise that we're real people after all, with diverse intentions, and diverse personalities.

The more we write, the more likely it is that both trannies taking their first steps along the realisation journey, and Vanillas™ wanting to find out a little bit about the likes of us, will start to shake off that dirty, 1950s idea of what Transvestites are.

Perhaps.

...

So, in part due to my inebriated bravado last night, and in part due to my sober desire for progression and change, I'm going to (a) suggest we all do one thing together, and (b) explain what I'm going to do specifically to try and out-do Transformation.

(a) I suggest that we all — trannies or otherwise — unless someone comes up with a damm good reason not to, link to the definition of "transvestite" on Wikipedia in the following way:

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transvestite" title="transvestite">transvestite</a>

(b) (i) Because I think there's a void that needs to be filled if we're actually going to achieve something positive, rather than just snipe about a company with dubious ethics, I'm going to make a concerted effort to talk a lot more about being a transvestite — what it means to me, how it affects me, and the ways in which it's developed over the years.

(ii) I'm going to be a lot more open about who and what I am, to try and get across the idea that being a transvestite isn't something to be ashamed about — it's something to celebrate, to discover, to experiment with, and most of all, to enjoy

Cool Now we just sit back and wait for Googlebot to come a'crawling.

(I, incidently, being the lazy sod that I am, have — you might have noticed — just added a bit of code to my regex script, that auto-converts the word "transvestite" into a link. I've probably borked a few old pages by doing that, but whatever)

"Tall poppy syndrome"?

Ha! Here's me banging on about the importance of Wikipedia, and I didn't even think to check.

*spanks self*

how can i write "<" or ">" in text?

In a similar way to what I said to Nikki about the ™ symbol Zoe — using < for < and > for >

Exactly Karol

LOL — it'll take a lot longer than a few hours Tiffany And it'll take more than just a handful of trannies and their friends to nudge it up to #1 (it was at #2 before BTW)

If only we knew someone who worked at a university and was responsible for running part of its website and therefore had more pagerank clout than a bunch of dmoz clones¹...

*la la la*

(¹ a reference — she quickly points out — to the sites that Transformation seem to run, that are responsible for them being at #1 in the first place)

Cool

Actually, in a small experiment to see what PageRank I have when I'm at work, compared to when I'm blogging, I thought I'd check out what exact values I had for both, and compare them to Transformation ... turns out my weblog has a higher PageRank than TF — weird, yet cool

That, funnily enough, was one of the things running around my head last night. But I figured "Nah" — they'd wipe us into the ground. I think it's worth reiterating that I don't think there's anything actually wrong with what they do — they have a market, and they bleed it dry. That is — as far as I remember — what Capitalism does isn't it?

WHen their actions seep into a more moral and intellectual arena, that's when I think we have license to attack. Which is what, I hope, we're starting to do.

Yeah, sorry about the regex hijacking the link — sometimes my code is a little clumsy.

I don't really get what your post is about Rachel — or at least, I didn't when I read it last night. THat'll be the drink though. I'll try again today.